”It would seem to mean little more than average investors fleeing investments at their low points only to buy back at higher prices. Add this data point to the "even more evidence about not beating the market" thread.”
Absolute! :)
Yes - That’s the underlying gist of the whole article I’d say. I didn’t quote it, but OAKBX was another “balanced” fund cited as having lost assets. I’m a bit surprised, in the case of PRWCX because i get the feeling from many posts here over the years that folks have practically been “knocking the doors down “ to get in. Resorting to schemes like transferring a single share to someone else so they could open an account.
The excerpt might well have been better placed in the "even more evidence about not beating the market" thread. BTW - I probably should have noted that the article is very positive towards balanced funds - largely because of the higher interest rate background today.

”The vast majority of investors don't have the stomach or temperament to passively invest in SPY or VBINX over 40 years. Even on this forum, how many are only invested in only these two or similar passive investments?”
For better or worse, the kind of investors who post here probably aren’t sitting on their hands for 40 years. :)

I think all of us are looking for a smoother, less dramatic ride...whatever that means. With indexing, you ride it up, you ride it down, and please don't tell me that there is a law of nature that says stock always go up over time...proven fact they get riskier over time...especially when you consider that you have more money invested over time...(why else would put options cost more the longer out your strike date is?)
I'm thinking back when my Dad got me started investing in the early 80's with my money working at the local Texaco...*ah the stories...I should write a book....
Kellogg, Raytheon, JNJ, Merck and Coke (KO), $2k in each....
Looking back I'm thinking if I just added $2k each year to each of those and did nothing else I would have a beach house in Hawaii to go along with a Ferrari collection..without all the noodling around, reading WSJ, etc etc.
I'm thinking my 5 stock portfolio would have beat any SPY index fund although, I don't think there were any index funds back then?
I think you could do worse than just roll with a Raytheon/LMT, JNJ, WMT/Costco, BRK-B, American Express, MSFT going forward over the next 20 years....
Best,
Baseball Fan

Check FMI international FMIJX. It was discussed a lot here as well on M* forums when it was a top performer for a few years. As usual, it is not mentioned anywhere as it's been underperforming for the last few years. I held ARTKX for a long TIME in one account or another, and bought it in my retirement account when they announced about closure.
Also, check VTRIX, VWICX, and Avantis International Large Value ETF AVIV if you are OK with ETFs.

Today is the 32nd anniversary of my purchase of DODGX. It was neck and neck with SPY up until the dot com bust. From then on, SPY never caught up. What happened the last 1-3-5-10-15-20 years doesn't make any difference.

Congratulations!
Most D&C funds carry ERs around .53% - probably a bit higher on international funds. Couple that with good management and it should pay off longer term. What I don’t know - but would love to hear - is how does a stable investor base affect a fund’s long term performance? And - while we’re on the subject … Indexes, like the S&P don’t have to contend with “flighty” investors moving in and out. Probably another reason they outperform active management..
Incidentally, looks like D&C’s domestic funds held up better than most yesterday. Likely their financials helped soften the downturn in overall market. Of course - that cuts both ways.

Today is the 32nd anniversary of my purchase of DODGX. It was neck and neck with SPY up until the dot com bust. From then on, SPY never caught up. What happened the last 1-3-5-10-15-20 years doesn't make any difference.

For the audience on this forum at least, I agree with stillers that these articles are kinda useless. For the very long term, passive beats active but in interim periods active can and does beat passive. Also an entirely different story and stats can be produced by picking different start and end dates of any analysis.
The vast majority of investors don't have the stomach or temperament to passively invest in SPY or VBINX over 40 years. Even on this forum, how many are only invested in only these two or similar passive investments?

ALMOST makes the entire managed (non-index) MF industry seem like a scam...
"Consider these tallies for funds that invest in S&P 500 stocks through the end of 2022:
Over three years, 74.3 percent of actively managed funds trailed the index.
Over five years, 86.5 percent underperformed.
Over 10 years, 91.4 percent underperformed.
Over 20 years, 94.8 percent underperformed."

I don't make much of articles that lump everybody together. Unless you are willing to really look at you goals and risk tolerances and investigate how a particular manger fits, you are better off in a passive funds, but ones based on the broadest market possible.
The extreme out performance of FAANMG or whatever in the last few years has distorted everything.
I do think it is fair to ask mangers who are 100% invested if they beat their respective benchmark over time.
I tend to think "active management" should also include knowing when the market is too expensive and the potential long term return unattractive and be able to raise cash for a margin of safety.

Anyone looking at the stats recognizes it's just brutal for active managers over the long-term. It's that fee drag that accumulates over time. There are a few lessons to be learned in it. It's really hard to win in large-caps that are widely covered by analysts. Fees really matter, so if you go active, look generally for a low-cost manager. Career risk matters too. This last one I think many investors don't know. I think many managers hug the benchmark because if they deviate too much and just a handful of, for instance, FAANG stocks are driving the market higher, not holding those stocks is a significant bet that could lead to job loss if you're wrong. So, many managers feel pressured to hold those popular names, end up being closet indexers as a result, and fall just as much as the market plus their fees when downturns occur. You need a manager who thinks differently, has the research team, intelligence and trading chops to execute his/her strategy effectively and low fees to boot--a tall order. Hence you get awful stats like the one in this article about large-cap managers versus the S&P 500:

Over 20 years, 94.8 percent underperformed.

I should have been more specific. The article's claim of private LLC's dying isn't true in today's world, most certainly not after the passage of the JOBS Act.
The ability of LP's in a real estate private LLC to get the benefits of depreciation that shields most of the tax impacts of the distributions is massive. I didn't fully realize the magnitude of this impact until I personally saw it on my tax returns. Easily 80%+ of cash flow is not subject to yearly tax due to depreciation and distributions from these partnerships are in general much higher than public REIT's -ranging from 6 - 12%.
Another lever available to LP's in real estate LLC's is the ability to pair passive losses against passive income (known as the PIGS/PAL strategy) to basically shield even more of the cash flow from taxes.
Investors in public REIT's do not directly get the benefits of depreciation. 1031 exchange(I have not done any) is another lever to execute a strategy colloquially referred to as defer, defer and die.
I'm not condoning the system (it is what it is, individual investors have no control on tax policy) but tax rules imo are ridiculously stacked in favor of property investors. Same applies for carried interest, a tax benefit that is today entirely disproportionate vs. the benefits to society.
The most public example of the benefits of tax rules to property investors is Trump -- New York Times has extensively covered how Trump got away(legally) with declaring massive (paper) losses on property that shielded his real cash flow income for many years(more than 15 if I recall correctly). At much smaller scales, LP's and GP's in real estate LLC's are basically doing the same thing.
Investors in Fidelity CRE would not(my guess) get the benefits of 1031 exchanges but the benefits of depreciation should flow directly to the LP's in the fund **assuming** the fund is structured similar to how private funds in general work(getting a K1 is key).
Fidelity in general as an org is a sharp cookie and they run a fairly large business as a custodian of private LLC's so they have a front row and insider view of the economics, consumer interest and ROI(to Fidelity). I'm speculating of course but I can't imagine that Fidelity is launching this fund on a whim.
EDIT
I see on the term sheet that tax reporting is 1099-DIV so what I stated above mostly won't apply to this particular fund but notwithstanding that, I stand by my other comments on the disproportionate advantages of being an LP in a real estate LLC.
I don't get what advantage accredited investors will get from this fund without a K1 that provides depreciation benefit but perhaps Fidelity's target is the mass affluent market that does not want to spend time scouring for reliable sponsors and trust in the Fidelity brand. Fidelity looks to be somewhat replicating the wildly successful BREIT fund.

I've lost tract of when that was @hank. Definitely Fund Alarm days. I think I started watching FA around 2006-7 or so so probably around that time. PMs and Asia EM were the hot sectors. Harry Brown's permanent portfolio was also talked about a lot. (rono might have called the consistent post 'asia and the metals' now that I think about it).

“Asia and the Metals “ was a morning staple on F/A. Already running when I came there sometime around 2000. But @rono may have posted it on an earlier board before F/A. Asia was a different animal geopolitically 25 years ago. Folks who then complained that Asian workers were taking away U.S. jobs now complain that the cheap items they bought at KMart / Walmart in those days cost a lot more today.
Unfortunately, I cleared out my trading records back to about 10-15 years. Otherwise I’d have a better reference to say when I first tuned in to F/A. Was around the time I moved out of American Century funds. Posted a question re that matter to which Maurice responded. (Never throw anything away.) :)

The Journal of Accountancy article from 1997 isn't relevant in today's world especially after the rise of crowdfunded CRE following the JOBS Act in the 2010's
That article discussed the alteration of tax benefits (notably pass through of losses) in 1986. Could you speak to the tax benefits that have since been restored or otherwise replaced that make the article irrelevant today?
If it's the date of the article that's bothering you, here's a 2020 Tax Foundation piece bemoaning how the TRA extended depreciation periods (MACRS) and restricted the use of declining balance depreciation.

Lessons for Today
...
Long asset lives (for example, 27.5 years for residential buildings and 39 years for nonresidential buildings) in which deductions are spread over many decades mean that companies cannot deduct anywhere near the full value of their investments in structures, as inflation and the time value of money chip away at the value of those deductions. Shortening depreciation schedules to 15 or even 20 years, roughly where they were before TRA86, would lessen the magnitude of this problem, but it would not be the ideal policy.
The current system of depreciation creates a bias against businesses that heavily invest in structures, as the effective marginal tax rates on investments in nonresidential and residential structures are much higher than those on equipment, software, and intellectual property.

https://taxfoundation.org/1980s-tax-reform-cost-recovery-and-the-real-estate-industry-lessons-for-today/
With respect to crowdfunding, that's a completely separate matter. It deals with who can invest, not how the investments are taxed. Whatever Regs A+ and CF and Rule 506(c) facilitate, they don't apply to the Fidelity offering. As stated in the Form D that yogi cited, Fidelity's offering gets its SEC exemption from Rule 506(b).

”Goes back to your Asia and the Miners days ...”

When the **** was that? Back in the 90s? Some here weren’t born yet. Agree - it’s great to see @rono chiming in.
Recently sold small spec stake in a silver miner (a case of the kitchen getting too hot). Still have a p/c mining fund owned many years. And of course there’s PRPFX. Also have a physical metals fund (the kind @MikeM prefers). And a CEF that plays around in gold (hopefully with somewhat more downside protection). Don’t overlook some of the industrial miners like RIO, GLNCY, BHP. These may catch some of the tail wind while spreading out the risk more.
I believe in moderation. When these things correct it resembles the biggest tree in the forest crashing down.

Or perhaps poor management. Walmart put up with losses there for 17 years, since day one, and then gave just five days notice before shutting down the stores. Not an indication of good planning skills, and certainly not good public relations. Not to mention running afoul of federal and state laws requiring months of advance notice.
The Honolulu closing was announced a month in advance. While longer, that might also be in violation of federal law, given that the shutdown affects 169 workers there.
https://www.kitv.com/news/business/walmart-store-in-downtown-honolulu-closing-in-april/article_fd2a9b04-c83f-11ed-89da-43bbf9638632.html
The issue in Chicago is not the loss of a retailer, but of supermarkets in food deserts.
https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-closing-chicago-stores-sparks-outrage-2023-4
While there are other nearby retailers in Honolulu (per @Crash), apparently there aren't any remaining large retailers downtown. How does this affect residents who don't drive?

Closure of last big downtown retailer, Walmart, prompts fears
First the downtown Walgreens closed about a year ago, followed six months later by the shuttering of the neighborhood Longs, and now the last major retailer, Walmart, plans to shut its doors after April 21

https://howzitkohala.com/2023/03/22/closure-of-last-big-downtown-retailer-walmart-prompts-fears/
(The full piece is from the Honolulu Star Advertiser behind a paywall.)

A couple of clarifications (perhaps):
- The termsheet that Shadow provided says that minimum additional investments are $5K, but doesn't say that these additional investments are required or that they can only be made on a monthly schedule.
- The 3 years before redemptions are allowed start when the initial offering is closed (as opposed to when operations begin). The Form D filing says that the initial offering is expected to remain open for more than a year. So it could be much longer than three years before one could get one's money out.
@sma3 - are you referring to the Tax Reform Act (TRA) of 1986?

ONCE TOUTED AS THE INVESTMENT vehicle of the future, limited partnerships are seldom pitched to investors today. Instead, clients and the CPAs who advise them are looking back at the tax and financial factors that contributed to the downfall of LPs in areas such as oil and gas, real estate and equipment leasing.
...
THE TAX REFORM ACT OF 1986, combined with increased Internal Revenue Service audit scrutiny spelled the beginning of the end for tax-oriented LPs. Extension of the at-risk limitations to real estate tax shelters and the passive loss provisions in the TRA [reducing the ability of individual taxpayers to offset income with losses from tax shelters] gave the IRS the weapons it needed.

Journal of Accountancy, What Happened to Limited Partnerships?
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/1997/jul/knight.html

I saw that one
FYI for all the opponents of the increased IRS budget, please remember that the chaos the GOP IRS budget cuts have caused has direct and significant negative impacts on average Americans.
My sisters and I are waiting for my deceased mother's refund ( $20,000) from her 2020 and 2021 taxes. She died over two years ago and we were required to file on paper.
I have called the IRS several times and have gotten conflicting advice about what to do. During the last call ( which takes hours) a very competent man confirmed they had the returns but they have to be processed by hand. He cold not tell me how long it would take, but wanted to make sure that this was not causing us significant financial distress.
What if we needed the money? Of course when we get it, it will not be paid with interest.

I have owned VWIGX for 30 years and 2 months. Annual returns over that period work out to 6.91. Can't say I'm excited about it. But it does show what a small investment can turn into over 30 years. And someday it will be the kids' problem.
Within the past couple of years I purchased IHDG and FYLD for their yield. They held up better than VWIGX during the recent excitement. But neither has a long track record.
So far, I haven't had to tap either for yield. So far, I am happy with them.

Sorry for the tax mess. Thanks for posting. Picked up a couple collectible U.S. coins several years ago. Have appreciated nicely. Assumed long term cap gains would apply. But if the tax hit is 28% (sounds like it), am better off hanging on.
Fortunately there are many avenues to p/c exposure that don’t suffer a tax hit if held in a tax sheltered / deferred account. Degree of risk / volatility varies by type of investment.

Yogi, I hear what you're saying but neither Price Capital Appreciation Fund was ever an option within the 401a options but rather a holding within the brokerage link account associated with the 401a that allows participants to invest in any mutual fund offered by the brokerage firm (Fidelity). Years ago, I had to beg and plead with Fidelity's mutual fund traders to let me do a share class exchange from PRWCX into TRAIX and then, I suspect, lost their sales agreement with Price to offer TRAIX. (If I had exchanged all but one share of the PRWCX, I could now invest additional money into PRWCX. And as I said, Price will not now allow a new share class exchange from TRAIX into PRWCX (because PRWCX is closed to new investors.) At least I can continue to reinvest TRAIX dividends each year into new shares. Lesson learned: If you ever do a share class exchange to get the lower fees associated with the Institutional class shares, hold back a few shares of the Investor class so that you'll be permitted to invest new money in the event the fund family changes their relationship with your broker.